


The Lyre of Orpheus

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A meditation on loss and mortality, Canonical Character Death, Disguised as a simple story about Jim riding his uncle's corpse, Necrophilia, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 08:17:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12317232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: Limbus patrum.





	The Lyre of Orpheus

**Author's Note:**

> While the necrophiliac content is fairly tame, and it's situational as opposed to a lifestyle choice, please heed the warning. If the idea of such things bothers you, don't read this story.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home.

This place is dead. It was a sudden death, for, in the past, the precinct, no matter what the hour, beat like a heart around you. It could be all but devoid of people, only the janitors gliding by with their carts, silent as a church and as cold as the grave- and, still, it was never dead to you. Never hard, or ugly, or unwelcoming. If all of your colleagues hated you, it didn’t matter; the precinct was your home. It warmed you and held you. It loved you, you let yourself think, foolish, helpless. Gotham’s always loved you. If it didn’t, why couldn’t you leave?  
You hear yourself tell Harvey: “I need a moment alone. With my uncle.” Your voice is as hollow as a bell, but there’s nothing to strike it and make it make the sound that it should.  
Harvey blinks. “Yeah,” he says, then “Right,” more solemnly, then “I understand,” unnecessarily.  
You thank him.  
It’s the dead of night. What’s Harvey still doing here? As much as he complains about his new duties, it’s weird to see him actually attending to them. Before you spoke, you stood in the doorway of his office for thirty seconds, watching him furrow and frown, and scratch at forms. For your concern, there’s no one around for Harvey to warn away from the morgue. A uniform passes you in the hall, giving you a cold, blank stare. It’s hostile, but empty. Maybe she’d look that way at anyone. Maybe she just wants to go home.  
Lee’s not here. Did you think she would be? Had you hoped? If she were here, she’d talk to you, look at you, even in anger. She’d grudgingly locate Frank, open the drawer, ask you bitterly if you needed her to leave, intending to go absolutely nowhere. Maybe she wouldn’t even ask. Maybe, so washed with grief, all grief now belongs to her. Your grief belongs to her, too. Because your grief belongs to her, she’d stand by the door, her arms folded over her chest, looking at the ceiling. Then, you’d look back at her. “Done?” she’d ask, mocking, disdainful. All grief and expressions of grief look paltry next to hers. You’d nod, and she’d let you out, and you’d stand by the door, listening to her slam the drawer shut. Involuntarily, you’d wince.  
Lee’s not here. No one is. You remember when there was always life in the morgue. Always life in the morgue. Feeling stupid, you smile. Dr. Guerra sometimes slept there, laid out- drunk, most people said- on one of the tables. Edward was suffered to conduct experiments of his own, on the condition that he cleaned up after himself. Sometimes, Lee stayed late, when she knew that you’d be working late, yourself. Not waiting for you, she said resolutely, smiling, her eyes sparkling. “I just find it convenient to be able to share a ride home,” she added. “Convenient,” you said, and smiled back. “Convenient,” she repeated.  
Still, you call out. Not too loudly. No one answers. The morgue looks hollow and huge with no one in it. It’s steel and chrome, but it could be a marble catacomb. The dead are always the dead. They give the place its feeling. Now, not daring to disturb Lee’s paperwork, you have to open each drawer. You try not to make too much noise. Though, who’s there to hear? The janitors look straight ahead as they walk down the halls. The uniform’s probably gone home. Harvey’s in his office, mired in his paperwork. Someone told you that Guerra got a job as an assistant in a pathology lab at Gotham General. Edward could be dead. Leslie is nowhere.  
You find Frank. For a moment, you’re not sure it’s him. You hadn’t been sure that it was him when he came to your door. Your first thought was that it was an impostor. Your heart had palpitated in hope. It was an impostor, with a story attached to him, leading someplace. Frank was real, though, and his story led nowhere. Into the past, which is as good as nowhere. If you don’t keep moving forward, you’ll be stuck there forever, with the dead. It’s not always as easy, though, as putting one foot in front of the other, and walking away. The past follows you. It hangs around you like fog; on you, like another body. Like a body, it demands things. It pulses, it beats with demands. You think- if you could resolve the things that had happened, it would let go of you. If it’s a mystery, that’s simple. You solve it. If it’s something else-- You welcome it into your home, you suppose. Offer it a drink. It’s family. It’s made of the same things as you. It’s your flesh and blood. You wouldn’t hurt yourself, would you?  
“Hello, Frank,” you say. You can’t come up with anything better. “I’m sorry,” you add, your throat constricting as though it doesn’t want to let out the words. “I’m sorry,” you say again, in a whisper, because that’s easier. Then, you must ask yourself what you’re sorry for. Nothing suggests itself immediately, only that the bullet wound to Frank’s head makes you feel as though it’s you who was injured, like you’re losing blood. Even if there were someone there to see it, no one would think to help, because the bleeding is internal. You’re losing blood, but you’re not losing it, because it’s still in your body. It’s just getting further and further from where it needs to be. You touch his face, frame the wound with your hand, between your thumb and forefinger, as though you were photographing it with a ruler for scale. It’s bloodless, now, white skin with the telltale stippling of a close range shot. Its reply is obscured, but it’s just a matter of moving Frank’s hair gently to the side to reveal all. You see ragged scalp, graying muscle, chipping beige bone, the deep brown of tissue saturated with gore. You smooth his hair back into place. The mortician will clean him up. Then, it’ll be as though none of this had happened. He’ll go to his grave looking like a wax effigy; the idea of a corpse, the idea of death. The idea of Frank. Though, all you had for so long was the idea of him. When you were very young, you used to tell other kids about your uncle Frank, who was a spy, or a titan of industry, or sometimes, a king in some faraway country. For him to have disappeared, it must have been to assume the mantel of a greater destiny. And if he never called or wrote to you or your mother, well- No, Frank was definitely a spy. He couldn’t even come to his brother’s funeral, for fear of blowing his cover. Secretly, Frank was working to keep you all safe. He was a hero.  
You press your thumb against his brow bone, and lift up an eyelid. The pupil has overtaken the iris. It’s just to be sure. That he’s really dead. That it’s not a trick. That he won’t appear before you in another twenty-five years, claiming that there was no other way. “There was no other way, Jim,” he said to you, at his cabin, “I hated myself for leaving you and your mother.” You could have told him that it was all right, that you were an adult now, so you understood. You could have told him that you hated him, too; or, at least, you had, when you were younger, before you stopped feeling anything about him at all. Neither answer felt satisfying or close enough to the truth, so you said nothing, watching him watching you over the rim of your glass. Watching him waiting for condemnation or absolution. You think, now, that he could have worked with either, but until you let him have one or the other, he was bound to idle, having no way to proceed. He can keep waiting. He can wait forever, now.  
In one motion, you rip the white sheet from him. You’re looking for clues. What did he do, for twenty-five years? Where did he live? How did he live? He went overseas, he said, but that’s the whole world. Was he serving penance, in some hidden hell, whipping himself like Galavan’s monks and wailing to the heavens? When you turn him onto his side, his shoulders and back are unmarked. No scars from ancient whiplashes. No remnants of stab or gunshot wounds. No tattoos, no hearts cleaved in twain, or strange women’s names. Not your mother’s name. Not your father’s. Not yours. No brand in the shape of an owl’s head. The blood has begun to pool, leaving his skin looking bruised, but that’s death. That’s not life. You turn him onto his back. His head falls to the side. His lips part, as though he were talking in his sleep. Involuntarily, you gasp, putting your hand to your mouth. It’s then, that you think of where your hands have been. You hold your hand against your mouth. Feeling desperate, you pick up Frank’s hands. His nails are buffed. His palms are soft. So, it wasn’t hell. The place where the Court hid him was a place of luxury. The first two fingers of his left hand are stained yellow. He sat on the terrace of a palazzo, smoking cigarettes with breakfast. He stood on a balcony in Paris, with the last cigarette of the day. His face is a sea of fine lines; there are freckles on his forehead, his cheekbones. He spent long hours in the sun. It warmed him, made him feel glad. Frank didn’t suffer. Whatever he might have said, Frank didn’t hate himself.  
You could hit him. It’d be like punching a wall. You could rummage around in Leslie’s desk until you found a letter opener or a pair of scissors, and stab him through the heart. You can’t kill what’s already dead. At this point, it’s virtually destruction of property. The papers have already been signed. Leslie was either told not to do a full autopsy, or saw no point, because the cause of death was obvious. The angle of the entry wound, its placement on the left side of Frank’s skull are suggestive; the gunshot residue on his left hand is conclusive. Was it pity for the dead, or indifference that stayed her hand? Or did she just think that she had you dead to rights; that no further evidence was necessary? That knowing you was enough to place your guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt. You run your hand down his chest. Is this better, or worse than if Leslie had cut him open? You’re familiar enough with autopsy procedure to wince at the thought. She would have dislodged Frank’s heart from its setting and weighed it. Would it be empty, or far too full? You place your hand over his heart. Of course it’s not beating, asshole. Stop thinking that there’s more to this story.  
You’ll have him cremated. You don’t want him in the ground with your father. It’s fitting. Letting him fly away on the wild wind, to who knows where; no family, no duty, nothing. Still, you lean down, put your ear to his chest. He doesn’t make a sound. Did you hope he would? You’ve seen the dead rise. Curiously, you never thought, until now, of your father. Though, after twenty-five years, the best that you could expect would be a reproduction. And then what? You’re too old for a father, now. The time has passed when you truly needed him. When something is over, it’s over. It’s dead.  
Frank’s lips are cold against yours. Of course they are. You don’t know why you did that. Why you find yourself caressing his face as though comforting him. He’s beyond comfort. You’re both beyond so many things. You’re not sure until you try it, so you’re relieved when the drawer holds your weight as well as his. You get up again. You lock the door. This place is dead. But you’ve seen the dead rise.  
Emptied of life, a body is just a thing. It has mass and shape, but nothing else. If it has the semblance of life, it’s only because you remember it as having been alive. Frank was never alive to you, not truly. All you had were memories. He’s been dead for twenty-five years, just like your father. Just like you. That’s a stupid thought. Your heart still beats. You put your hand over your heart, then over Frank’s. You’re warm, even in this frigid place. Frank is as cold as the grave, as the past, as every empty thing you’re dying to fill. Even if you pushed him to the side, the slab wouldn’t accommodate you both, so you lie on top of him. You look at him. He doesn’t look at you, because he can’t look, he can’t see anymore. You kiss him. He still feels alive- I mean, his body still feels like a living body. Even though it can’t do any of the things that a living body can do. But it can lie still. If you close your eyes, it’s like holding someone when they’re asleep. If you don’t think about how cold his skin is. If you don’t think about his heart not beating, his chest not rising and falling. But you kiss him. You push back his head, and press your lips to his throat. Can you still smell his cologne? Of course you fucking can’t. You pick up his hand, and set it against your face. It’s his left hand. This bears the smell of cordite. It’s the smell of your office, of your day-to-day life. It’s the smell of control, the comfort you find in it. It’s safe, and it’s yours, and you close your eyes, and lean into his hand, held in your hand. You remember seeing him at your parents’ dinner parties, their cocktail parties, their bridge evenings, when you were young. He was like the compass on a map; wherever everyone else was, whatever they were doing, he could almost always be found at the edge of the room, smoking a cigarette in long, slow movements, watching everyone. And you watched him, when it was late, after you’d already been sent to bed, but come downstairs to peek at what was being kept from you. Everyone else was so easy to place. They paired off into couples, or formed a knot with friends, men with men and women with women. Frank, though, drifted back and forth along the margins, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, hearing all, but saying very little. Occasionally, something would amuse him, and he’d smile, his mouth closed, his eyes soft. One day, you’d learn all his secrets. Now, of course, you know them.  
You press your body against his, move experimentally. It feels good in a mechanical way, because his body still feels like a living body, and if you’d just stop thinking, it would all be mechanics. You don’t want to stop thinking, though. If you stop thinking, if he’s just a body, it’s not what you really want. You want the living man. You want him to come back, and answer you. And if you can’t have him? Well-  
You can’t take off your clothes. That… would be too much. You’re still able to think rationally. You locked the door, but the second you hear the doorknob rattling, you’re going to have to act. Then, it’s going to be over. So, you have to think about how quickly you’ll have to move. You should stop this right now. But, somehow, you started something, and it’s not over. Not yet. You kiss him. You touch him. He’s beginning to take on some of your warmth, like a bed you’ve been sleeping in. You kiss him. Before you can talk yourself out of it, you kiss the wound on his left temple. It feels slightly less like masturbation, this way. It almost feels like there are two of you here. Though, of course, there are. There will always be two of you, until the day you die. Your memories will then die with you, and then, Frank will really be dead. Until then-  
The room is empty. The world is dead. So you let yourself moan. It’s the sound of a minor injury, or a rude awakening. You push against Frank once more, feel yourself shudder. You’re breathing so loudly that it must fill the room. You could pretend that it’s him breathing, with you. You get off of him. You touch his face. His mouth is still open, as though he were about to speak. You close his mouth, rearrange his limbs, wrap him again in his white sheet. Through the sheet, you caress his face. You close the drawer. For a long time, you stand there, stupidly looking at it. You need to clean yourself up. You can feel your underwear sticking to you, the stain spreading and cooling. But not yet. There’s something you need to think about- something you need to find. Some insight needs to find you. Something needs to make sense to you. There’s still something you need.  
And then it comes. What you realize is that you could stand there forever, staring at the door to the morgue cabinet, thinking about Frank’s body behind it, semen in your underwear and your brain rapidly loosening from orgasm and fatigue, and none of this, none of the past twenty-five years would still make any fucking sense to you. You don’t know anything, you don’t understand anything, and you never will.  
It’s with a totally empty feeling that you go to the locker room. Everyone is long gone, so there’s no one to hide from. You leave still feeling that emptiness, as though it had a mass, a presence, as though the absence of something could fill you as certainly as the thing it took away.  
This place is dead. The janitors are gone. Someone’s asleep at their desk, their head down. You can’t see their face, so it’s just the idea of a person. And there, in Harvey’s office, the light is still on.  
“I thought you’d gone home,” Harvey says, his voice rough, exhausted.  
“I could say the same to you,” you say. Do you sound defensive? Do you sound angry? Why should you? You’re empty.  
“Buy you a drink?” Harvey says.  
“I don’t feel like going to a bar.”  
“Fuck that,” Harvey says, “I own the bar.” From his desk drawer, he takes a bottle of whiskey. After a moment, he finds two glasses. “You can have the clean glass,” Harvey says, and hands you a drink. You wait until he pours one for himself, watching him, your glass held aloft.  
“To your uncle,” Harvey says solemnly.  
You shake your head. “No,” you say, and Harvey raises his eyebrows. “To the living.”


End file.
